Saturday, October 01, 2005

Heading Home

I don't know if it's true that you can't go home again, but certainly you can't go back to how things were. Spending these past few days meeting up with old friends, driving past our old house, cruising around the busy Santa Cruz streets have brought back memories-- but nothing hit our hearts like being back at the family beach house and sitting around the dining room table with the pirate's daughters. We've sat around that dining table together as a family many times over the past sixteen years, so looking at their faces last night was the most nostalgic moment, the one that drove home just how far we have moved away. It was a little heartbreak. The pirate's daughters will never be those young kids again, coming for their summer vacations and Christmas breaks. One daughter is married and has a step-son of her own, the other daughter is utterly independent and making a life for herself in San Francisco. They are adults, and the passage of time has taken us far from each other. We are winding up our trip today and will be getting on the train this evening. It's been a fine visit with family both north and south. We hope we've indulged enough in all that sweet love and family affection to last us until our next visit. We also tried to take in as much of our old home town as we could. Here are a few of the sights we have enjoyed during our visit.